World and Olympic Steeplechase Champion Yulia Zaripova is Not Competing at The 2013 IAAF World Championships
Other Updates Include The Withdrawal Of Tunisia’s Habiba Ghribi And The Fact That Kenya’s Lidya Chepkuriui Was Selected For The Kenyan Team
by LetsRun.com
August 9, 2013
Moscow, Russia – The stars keep dropping like flies before the 2013 IAAF World Championships even begin here tomorrow. A smart astute LetsRun.com visitor emailed us yesterday while we were travelling to Moscow to tell us he’d noticed that one of Russia’s biggest stars – 2011 World and 2012 Olympic steeple champion Yuliya Zaripova is not on the start list for the women’s steeplechase. He then wrote back and said, “the rumor is she hit the barrier hard and has withdrawn.”
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We have no idea if his ‘rumor’ of her being injured in practice is accurate but have confirmed that Zaripova is out of Moscow 2013. We have reached out to the IAAF to see if they’d like to issue a formal statement on Zaripova’s withdrawal and will post it if we receive one.
Update: The ‘rumor’ he heard was true. SAPA – AFP is reporting the following:
“Two days ago Zaripova injured her take-off leg after hitting the barrier during practice,” 27-year-old Zaripova’s coach Alexei Melnikov was quoted as saying by the Russian athletics federation.
“She has seriously hurt her knee and has torn the inguinal (groin) muscles. She will undergo detailed medical testing but it’s already clear that the season for her is over.”
So yet another big name is a no show for Moscow 2013.
Zaripova on top of the World at the 2011 Worlds
Mid-d and distance wise, four of the 10 Olympic champions on the track in the 800, 1500, steeplechase, 5000 and 10,000, won’t be competing in Moscow. There definitely is a post-London hangover going around for the sports biggest stars. Men’s 800 champion David Rudisha of Kenya and men’s 1500 champion Taoufik Makhloufi of Algeria are out with injuries. On the women’s side, in addition to Zaripova, 1500 champion Aslı Çakır Alptekin is out with a doping violation.
Non mid-d and distance wise, the World Champs of course are without the likes of sprinters Asafa Powell, Tyson Gay, Yohan Blake, and Veronica Campbell-Brown as well as heptathlon star Jessica Ennis-Hill.
More: Discuss this in our forum: MB: Zaripova NOT on startlist
Quick Take #1: Zaripova was our heavy favorite in the women’s steeple. You can read our preview here but this is a huge break for the Kenya’s Milcah Chemos who now becomes the favorite. We are working on a list of World Championship predictions and one of them was going to be “The Kenyan women win zero golds on the track for the second straight year” but now they’ve got a good shot at one gold.
Ghribi Out, Chepkuriui In
It has also came to our attention that Tunisia’s Olympic steeplechase silver medalist Habiba Ghribi has withdrawn with injury as she recently had knee surgery. Also, Kenya’s Lidya Chepkuriui is in fact on the Kenyan team. We incorrectly stated in our preview that she didn’t make the team based on a mistake printed on a Kenyan news site. Go here for official start list.